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ACT English 4.2 Punctuation 319 Views


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Description:

ACT English: Punctuation Drill 4, Problem 2. Which choice properly formats the question?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by question marks. They got here fast because

00:07

they weren't afraid to ask for directions.

00:10

How should you change the below sentence to make it correct, if at all?

00:13

She asked whether the sentence ended here?

00:21

This is one of those sneaky sentences that's not necessarily a question as a whole, but

00:25

is harboring a question inside of it.

00:28

So we know the original sentence is incorrect, because by putting the question mark at the

00:31

end, it makes it seem like someone is asking whether the girl asked something.

00:35

Not that someone couldn't do that, but it doesn't seem to be what's going on here.

00:38

We can get rid of choice (B) for the exact same reason.

00:41

Nobody's asking whether she's asking anything.

00:44

We can nix (C) for the same reason, and also because "whether" is a conjunction that generally

00:49

signals a choice, not a question.

00:52

This leaves us with (D), the correct answer.

00:53

See, the quotation marks separate the direct question from the rest of the sentence, making

00:58

the sentence a statement about someone asking something,

01:00

instead of a question about someone asking something.

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